How to get an iPhone without a service contract and save $$$

Two of the downsides of the iPhone are the two-year indentured servitude to AT&T, and the cost of the service plans (well, they’re not that expensive, but it’s 50% more I was spending on my Sidekick.) But I inadvertently found a way around both those problems.

My wife and I had gotten our credit reports locked a few years ago. You can write letters (by snail-mail) to the credit agencies telling them not to let anyone see your credit report. This almost eliminates junk credit-card offers, and keeps sleazy people who’ve gotten your SSN from using it to get lots more information.

It does mean, though, that you can’t do things on a whim that require credit checks … as I found out when the AT&T, in the privacy of my living room, turned me down for a service contract. I’d forgotten all about the credit report lock.

But that turned out to be a good thing. Because if (and only if) you don’t qualify for a regular service plan, AT&T will offer you instead the month-to-month “GoPhone” plans. These are supposedly suckier because they come with fewer minutes and you pay more per extra minute; but they’re cheap ($30+), and I don’t make a lot of voice calls so I don’t care about having “only” 200 minutes a month. It’s the unlimited data I need, and that’s the same $20 as in the regular iPhone plans. So the total comes to $50 a month, versus a minimum of $60 for the cheapest regular plan. And they’ll automatically charge my credit card, just like normal; it’s really not like being on food-stamps at all.

So I got an iPhone without a service contract, and I’m saving $10 a month. Score!

If you live in one of the states that allows credit-report locking, you should be able to do this too; the drawback is you have to plan ahead, writing letters to the credit agencies several weeks in advance.

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By: Jens Alfke
On: July 1, 2007
at: 10:53 pm
As: Ideas
See: 13 comments;
Add: your comment

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This is the blog of Jens Alfke.

Introverted, intuitive, thinking, perceiving. I live to make things: most often software, sometimes designs or mixes or stories or photos. (I wish I could make music.)

Father, husband. My home is a nest of family. Outside is overrun with flowers and vines and shade trees, inside with books and CDs and kids’ drawings and game pieces and game cartridges.

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On Mon, Jul 2 at 6am,
samuelcole.name said —

Evidently you can also accomplish the same effect by putting in a fake/invalid social security number.

On Mon, Jul 2 at 9am,
topfunky said —

Awesome! This is exactly what I need. Thanks for the tip.

On Mon, Jul 2 at 10am,
fluffy said —

Huh! I wonder if it’s possible to get GoPhone even with good credit? I’ve always liked the PAYG plans better simply because I don’t need that many minutes per month (and having a per-minute cost is nicer than having a usae cap + extra-spendy minutes), but I’ve never switched to such on T-Mobile because T-Mobile doesn’t offer any decent data service on their PAYG plans.

On Mon, Jul 2 at 12pm,
Jens Alfke said —

@fluffy — from all I’ve read (on non-authoritative sources like MacWorld) you can only get the GoPhone plans if you fail to qualify for a service contract.

On Mon, Jul 2 at 1pm,
fluffy said —

Well then, I’ll just have to use 078-05-1120 and see if that works. ;)

On Wed, Jul 4 at 4pm,
George Bailey said —

@fluffy — Hey! That’s my number!

On Thu, Jul 5 at 5pm,
Stripes said —

I have heard folks at the AT&T store tell people to enter 999-99-9999 as the soc# to get pay-as-you-go. FYI, those plans don’t give you as many minutes for the buck (and I don’t think they have family plans).

On Thu, Jul 5 at 6pm,
fluffy said —

Yeah, but 200 minutes/month (with rollover) is WAY more than I (and many others) need, personally, and a lot of people just want the iPhone for data service.

What’d be really nice is if you could get the ordinary GoPhone service where you just buy minutes on an as-needed basis, and only have to pay the monthly fee for the data. T-Mobile actually has a deal like that for the Sidekick, though the price-per-minute is rather high and the data is $1/day.

On Sun, Jan 27 at 10am,
Linda said —

I wonder if there’s a way to switch from the regular $60 plan to the GoPhone plan? Like you I need the unlimited data access but I’ve been accumulating scads of extra calling time. I probably don’t use more than ten minutes a month of calling time.

I’m going to call AT&T next week to see if there’s a way to switch. Unless you have a way? They’re auto billing my credit card now, at my request. Maybe it’s too late the get the cheaper plan?

On Sun, Jan 27 at 11am,
Jens Alfke said —

@Linda — I don’t know! But I suspect they are unlikely to voluntarily let you switch to a cheaper plan. This is a cellphone carrier we’re talking about :-p

On Sun, Jan 27 at 12pm,
fluffy said —

Since the point to GoPhone is that it’s contractless, you’d have to terminate your contract and pay the early termination fee in order to do that. Or you can wait until your contract is up and then switch, or sign up for GoPhone and terminate your previous service (you may even be able to take advantage of number portability if you do that, too).

On Sun, Jan 27 at 2pm,
Linda said —

All of a sudden a two year contract feels like a stranglehold. :) I’ll post if I get anywhere with AT&T.

On Thu, Sep 25 at 11am,
jimb said —

putting a lock on your credit is the best thing
to do.

How to get an iPhone without a service contract and save $$$

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